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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27232216">to ward all wounds and harm from them</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mornen/pseuds/mornen'>mornen</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I see a darkness in you [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Biting, Character Study, Childhood, Childhood Trauma, Family, Fear, Fear of Death, Fear of fire, Fire, Frostbite, Kidnapping, Magic, Past Violence, Snow, Stars, Wilderness, Winter, Wrestling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:43:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,500</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27232216</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mornen/pseuds/mornen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Maglor thinks about his current role as father to his kidnapped children </p><p>*</p><p>Elros and Elrond bring Maglor holly from the forest. They hang it with twine from the rafters and in front of the window. The candlelight jumps over the leaves and the berries. It sets Maedhros’s hair blazing. It gathers in the boys’ starlit eyes. </p><p>Elros dances his finger along the candle flame then back and forth fast enough that it doesn’t burn him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Elrond Peredhel &amp; Elros Tar-Minyatur &amp; Maglor | Makalaurë, Maedhros | Maitmo &amp; Maglor | Makalaurë &amp; Elrond Peredhel &amp; Elros Tar-Minyatur</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I see a darkness in you [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2025992</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>to ward all wounds and harm from them</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Elrond and Elros get colder faster than elven children would. They come in from outside with red cheeks, red noses, red on the tips of their ears. Their teeth chatter. Their lips turn blue. </p><p>Maglor tries to keep track of it, makes notes of when they start getting cold, sets time limits. He wraps them in their little wool cloaks – red with a pointed hood. They run through the snow and come back shivering, so he takes them inside and pours them tea and warms them by the fire. </p><p>He wonders if their parents had these same problems, or if they knew when it was time to drag them back inside, if they got cold fast too. But Elrond grows quiet. But Elros doesn’t remember. </p><p>‘Even elves get frostbite,’ Maedhros whispers as the boys sleep. He sips his tea and watches the dark clouds in the sky. </p><p>Maglor adds salt to the soup. He doesn’t reply because he’s thinking of Fingon and the missing tip of his ear.</p><p>‘We’ll get more fur,’ Maedhros says. </p><p>Elros and Elrond bring Maglor holly from the forest. They hang it with twine from the rafters and in front of the window. The candlelight jumps over the leaves and the berries. It sets Maedhros’s hair blazing. It gathers in the boys’ starlit eyes. </p><p>Elros dances his finger along the candle flame then back and forth fast enough that it doesn’t burn him. </p><p>Maglor sits across the table from him and says, ‘Eat.’ </p><p>Elros drinks the broth from the soup and then eats the vegetables, the bits of meat. He drinks his milk last. </p><p>‘I’m cold, I’m cold, I’m cold!’ Elrond sings, like he isn’t cold at all and just wants Maglor to gather him into his arms and keep him close. Maglor does. He lifts Elrond and holds him tightly to him. Elrond eats the rest of his dinner from Maglor’s lap. Elros skips around the small cabin and then runs to Maglor and holds his arms up. Maglor shifts Elrond over and puts Elros up near him. He kisses the tops of their heads. </p><p>The fire grows low. The embers are red. The ash turns from black to grey. </p><p>Maglor still hates fire. </p><p>‘I want to see the stars, I want to see the stars,’ Elros says, singing it out too. They always sing.</p><p>‘It’s cold,’ Maglor says.</p><p>‘Cloak!’ Elros retorts. He jumps off Maglor’s lap and pulls on his arm. Maglor gets up, carrying Elrond against his chest. He sets him down on the floor beside the door and helps the boys put on their boots, lace them up, wool sweaters, wool cloak, fur hats, pointed hoods up.</p><p>The boys run out in front of him into the winter night. The stars are bright where the clouds aren’t hiding them. </p><p>‘It’s the sickle!’ Elros says. </p><p>‘It looks like a dipper,’ Elrond sings. His voice bounces off the dark trees around them. </p><p>‘Shh,’ Maglor says. He put his hands on their shoulders. ‘It looks like either.’ </p><p>‘Like a dipper,’ Elrond whispers. </p><p>‘Like a sickle,’ Elros says.</p><p>‘Like a dipper.’</p><p>Elros shoves Elrond into the snow. Elrond throws snow back at him, but it’s the soft, powdery kind that won’t make a real ball and just goes up in a flash of glitter in the lamp light. </p><p>‘Boys,’ Maglor scolds. He lifts Elrond off the snow. Elrond brushes the snow from his cloak. </p><p>‘I don’t like you anymore, Elros,’ and he rolls the ‘r’ very hard to show he’s serious. </p><p>Elros rolls his eyes at him. </p><p>Maglor takes Elrond’s hand and then Elros’s and holds them both at his sides so that they can’t fight each other. It feels suddenly like it’s ages ago, when he was holding his little brothers apart so they wouldn’t kill each other. It’s then and it’s now, but it isn’t the future, because his heart is very heavy, and he feels inside of him that these are his last children. His only children, because he’s their father now, not just the older brother who would lock himself in his room when he was sick of it. He can’t walk away from these ones.</p><p>And then Elros’s teeth start to chatter, so he scoops them both up and carries them inside to where it is warm again and the room glows with the light of the flames, and it’s so very red on the wooden walls. He stops breathing for a moment, and Maedhros stands, because he knows he’s afraid of fire, and he knows why. </p><p>‘It was a bit clear out,’ Maglor says. He sets the boys down. ‘Boots off. Go to the fire.’ He watches them take off their outer clothes, handing each piece to be hung to him so that he can hang them on the wooden pegs on the wooden walls that are too high for them. </p><p>Maglor touches the wall. </p><p>‘Wood burns so easily.’ </p><p>And he’s said it out loud, but his children haven’t heard him. They’re by the fire playing with each other’s hair because they’ve already forgotten their fight or it wasn’t important enough to matter. </p><p>‘Nelyo,’ Maglor says and clears his throat and smiles. Because he said it out loud.</p><p>Maedhros shrugs. </p><p>‘But wood is easy to leave. Easy to burn when you have to leave.’ </p><p>Maglor nods. He pulls off his cloak and hangs it on the peg beside his sons’ cloaks. He brushes out his hair with his fingers until he feels like he’s real again and not a figure standing to the side of a tragedy unable to stop the flames because you can’t scream loud enough to put out fire. </p><p>Elrond throws his hands up in the air, and the fire in the brick oven jumps up with his hands, sparking up the chimney. </p><p>‘Don’t do that,’ Maglor says firmly. </p><p>Elrond looks over his shoulder. </p><p>‘I don’t mean to do it,’ he says. </p><p>‘I know,’ Maglor answers. He takes the tea that Maedhros hands him and drinks it on the low bench by the low table. </p><p>Elrond and Elros face each other to play a clapping game and then the cabin is a home, because there are his children, and they are laughing. And they have hair as black as midnight and eyes as grey as dusk, and they laugh like they could never forget how to, no matter what. </p><p>Elros looks over his shoulder at Maglor and smiles. His cheeks are still red, the tip of his nose, the tips of his ears. But his smile is sunshine on a summer day, and his eyes are as bright as starlight. </p><p>‘I love you,’ Maglor says. </p><p>‘I love you, Ada,’ Elros says. </p><p>And Elrond sings, ‘I love you,’ and slaps his hand down on the top of Elros’s hand when he’s distracted. </p><p>Elros knocks him to the floor again and they wrestle, hair and teeth and nails. Maglor doesn’t stop them. He watches the way their hair flashes in the firelight, in the candlelight, the way it lights their skin up golden, the summer caught in both their smiles when they think that maybe they’re winning before they go down again. </p><p>Maedhros rests his hand on Maglor’s shoulder. Maglor looks up for a moment, but his attention is drawn back to the children. </p><p>‘I think maybe you’re too evenly matched,’ he says. The candle flames dance with the children as they fight, going up straighter and taller than their flames should. And the water jumps in the bucket, high like a fountain. </p><p>‘That’s enough now,’ Maedhros says. </p><p>Maglor shakes his head. </p><p>‘No, it’s fine.’ </p><p>And it is fine, because in the dead of winter, the house glows like summer, and in the dead of the wilderness, a fountain springs. These are his children, born from mortal, immortal, and holy. And the world sings around them, or they sing with the world, and they are caught in the music, and the music catches in their eyes. And the flames are dancing, the water leaping, and the rocks jump to play, and sometimes flowers spring up around them, but they are still his children. </p><p>Because he took them. Because he held them. Because they have no one else now. Because he loves them, even with his broken heart. And they can still laugh, even when they are kidnapped, stolen. Even when the world is dying. And maybe that means that there is always hope. Even if that hope was snatched from a battlefield and carried off crying. </p><p>Elrond bites Elros, and Elros gasps. </p><p>‘Elrond!’ </p><p>‘Elrond, don’t bite your brother,’ Maglor says instinctively. He’s said that a thousand times too. ‘Turko, Moryo, Curvo, Pityo, Telvo, Elrond, Elros, don’t bite your brother.’ </p><p>Elros runs to Maglor; Maglor lifts him into his arms. Elros tosses his head at Elrond. Elrond stares back with wide eyes, but then he laughs, and the fire plays like summer-light on his face. Maglor lifts him too. He kisses his children.</p><p>Outside the snow falls. The wind screams.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>requested on tumblr ❤️</p></blockquote></div></div>
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